


Shadowed

by 3ves



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Meteorstuck, Oneshot, awkward confessions, collage of moments, like two seconds of angst, not really - Freeform, postretcon, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 05:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15678654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3ves/pseuds/3ves
Summary: In another lifetime, another version of reality, Karkat and Dave both knew that large shadows never bode well. But here, in this place, together, shadows were only a thing of comfort, a place where they made their home.





	Shadowed

**Author's Note:**

> After weeks of radio silence, I finally crawled out of the crappy hole I fell into to bring y'all this soft moment that I wrote specifically to make myself feel better.
> 
> EDIT: I rewrote this because I was unhappy with it and I highly recommend the other fic "Not Friends" over this one.

For Karkat, it started with a laugh. Well, almost a laugh. Whatever it was, it barely qualified as a laugh but from Dave, it was everything. Dave had had the nerve to let out an abrupt chuckle, an almost snort, as Karkat had stood in the center of the scrawled mess of a hopscotch grid Dave had drawn and questioned how, after creating an entire universe and witnessing the massacre of his friends, he had ended up here. With Dave. Playing some inane wriggler’s game from Dave’s stupid and infinitely inferior planet.

And Dave had laughed! Kind of! 

He’d laughed with a tilt to his chin that Karkat knew meant he was staring straight at Karkat. He’d laughed while radiating so much fondness, Karkat could feel the blood surging up to his cheeks and he had the compelling urge to cover his face or run away or just hide from Dave for the next few weeks because, staring at Dave’s smile, Karkat felt his bloodpusher do dangerous things within his chest.

Instead of all of those things, Karkat had continued to stare at Dave while his uncertainty and insecurity welled up within him. Dave’s smile had slipped away. (Damn him.) His slender fingers had reached forward and gently tugged Karkat’s sleeve in an affectionate gesture Karkat knew marked progress because, when they’d first met, Dave had jumped away from any touch and delved into brief monologues about human homosexuality and how he was definitely one hundred percent a grade straight.

“You alright, Karkat?” Dave had asked and for some reason, the sound of his name falling from Dave’s lips had sent a jolt down Karkat’s spine. His gaze had slipped down to where Dave’s hand rested lightly on his arm and then spoke one of his favorite words.

“Fuck.”

 

And then there was Dave. Dave Strider. Knight of Time. Dave of Guy. Straight Dave. No-Homo-Strider. Dave Strider.

For Dave, there was no singular moment that shined a spotlight on his emotions. Most days, there were so many turbulent emotions within him, he couldn’t pick them apart even if he wanted to. He left that mostly to Rose and let Karkat in his strange, loud manner smooth over the tidal wave of things that overwhelmed him. Maybe he always kind of knew that he was toeing the line or maybe things just got to a point where nearly romantic but mostly platonic shifted and he found himself smack dab in the middle of In Love With Your Best Friend Territory. 

So Dave fell slowly, between shared moments and shared spaces. He sank into it as if it were as natural as breathing and never noticed the change until it reached a point where he knew he couldn’t go back. Even then, he didn’t have a word for it, didn’t know how to match himself with the labels he’d heard passed around at school. For him, Karkat was his closest friend and then he found himself starving for more, even if he didn’t know what “more” meant.

Dave found his feet tracing the steps to Karkat’s door every night. He found himself waking up with his arms tangled around the boy and his nose tickled by Karkat’s thick, curly hair. He found himself pretending to be asleep for a little while longer and feeling a sense of loss when Karkat woke up and carefully extracted himself from Dave’s arms to avoid disturbing him. He found himself doing a lot of things that didn’t quite fit under the label of friend.

But Karkat never mentioned any of these things and, for that, Dave felt both extraordinarily relieved and disappointed even though he didn’t know why.

It wasn’t that Karkat hadn’t noticed though. It was that he did.

He’d burst into Kanaya’s respiteblock and throw himself onto the floor at her feet as she worked on a dress for her matesprit.

“Kanaya,” he had wondered aloud as he stared up at her ceiling, “Was it this bad with Rose?”

Kanaya had hummed a little before reaching down and patting his head.

“Unfortunately.”

Because Karkat, used to looking out for signs of aggression like the change in Gamzee’s posture as he was about to call for blood, the crinkle in Terezi’s voice as she smelled him for the first time, and the glint in Kanaya’s eyes as she reached for her lipstick case, noticed everything from the way Dave’s voice was more monotone and appeared more bored, when he spoke to anyone but the Mayor and Karkat. He noticed how, when Dave’s sunglasses were hanging from the front of his godtier pajamas, he could see how red creeped up to Dave’s face when he leaned on him during movies. He noticed how Dave always sat a little closer than necessary. Karkat noticed. He just didn’t know what to do about it because hadn’t he also noticed Terezi? Hadn’t that gone absolutely shithive maggots when he’d done something?

So Karkat didn’t do anything and Dave didn’t do anything and nothing changed. (But everything definitely did.)

 

And it was nighttime. Or the closest thing to night on a meteor plunging through space. There was nothing but the light of a screen casting deep shadows on the walls. In another lifetime, another version of reality, Karkat and Dave both knew that large shadows never bode well. But here, in this place, together, shadows were only a thing of comfort, a place where they made their home.

Shadows accompanied the dimness of a long empty hallway they explored on their own. Shadows meant safety from too bright lands that still haunted them both. Shadows allowed each of them to steal glances at each other, to hide the fact that everything appeared brighter when the other was near.

The new session was near. Both of them knew it. And part of Karkat knew, without a doubt, that Dave was a shade closer than he needed to be, that Dave was a shade more comfortable with him than he used to be, that Dave could become something a shade more. It didn’t stop the doubts from crowding in. So many people came close before slipping away. Gamzee locked away in an icebox was evidence enough to Karkat that maybe nothing was meant to stay in his life.

“Dave,” Karkat mumbled, more blanket than troll with the way he was bundled up as if the layers could serve as armor for the feelings he was about to bare. “Will we still be friends when we reach the new session? I feel like it’s possible I’ve made a lot of assumptions about us and it’s possible we were just hanging out to fill the time.”

Dave startled. After so much time together, Karkat could see the tension in Dave draw up and sense the way he was on the verge of pulling away. 

“Dude what. Of course we’ll still be friends. You aren’t- Fuck. You aren’t just anybody, Karkat. I don’t think I would’ve gotten this close to just anybody.”

Karkat nodded, pulled the blankets tighter around his chin, and buried himself into them in an effort to appear smaller. “I’m going to make another assumption then.”

“Why do you always say things so weirdly,” Dave replied flatly, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

“Dave.”

Something in Karkat’s voice made Dave’s smile fade away, made him lean closer rather than farther, as if maybe his entire life really had twisted in a way to bring him crashing into this moment. Outside, Karkat could picture the ghosts of so many versions of himself passing by. He was here. In the Alpha timeline. He was here and some part of him really, really wanted to close the ever shrinking distance between him and Dave before this meteor crashed into who knew where.

“Dave, I- what if I want to be something... else? Not friends.”

Dave wrinkled his nose in confusion before letting out a soft laugh, “Are you breaking up with me as a friend?”

Dave started to lean back into the couch to restart the movie. With an amount of force and conviction that startled even himself, Karkat reached forward out of the swath of blankets and grabbed Dave’s wrist, keeping Dave from pulling away completely and forcing him to maintain eye contact. Karkat just wanted Dave to figure it out for once, to just know what Karkat was asking because for once Karkat didn’t have all the words to express his emotions loudly and exuberantly.

“No. Dave. Could you ever see me like that? Not a pal. Not a bro. Not. A. Friend.”

This close, Karkat could see Dave’s eyes fixating on his own, searching him for something but Karkat didn’t know what. It felt as though Dave was counting up some list of traits in the same way he could count up seconds and minutes and hours. All Karkat could hope was that he measured up. When he finally answered, Dave’s voice was soft, nearly inaudible had he not been so close, “Could you?”


End file.
